I thought I would update you on my girl. We had our x-ray today and counted 7 for sure maybe 8 pups. My vet thought we should go ahead with an elective c-section as when she had the litter with 12 pups there was a tear in the right uterine horn. Ok that sounds good to me. Here is my dilemma. She was 5.5ng on Nov.10th. She was bred Nov.12 and 13. My vet wants to do the section 63 days post ovulation. That is next Monday. The only other day that someone is there to do the surgery is this Saturday (day 61). Im quite worried that she will go into labor on the weekend and no one will be available to do it. She is going to run an inhouse progesterone test on Saturday to make sure she is below 2.0ng. If she is not would you wait until Monday? Do you think that 61 days is too early? The books say anytime after day 59 is safe for pups to be born.

would not feel comfortable taking the puppies unless the in-house progesterone test came back below 2.5 ng.
forget the books, every dog is different. if your vet is not available get him to give you a name of a good vet that can do the surgery (when your girl's body is telling you it is safe to take the pups)

http://www.papillonclub.org/Education/c-section.htm

Tough call. I would go ahead with the prog. test on Sat., but have an emergency vet lined up for Sunday. With that size litter, being her second - she might not wait until Monday. I had a bitch with only 2 pups go over all three of her"possible due dates" by one day. We waited to do the c-sec. until her prog. number came down.

Also check her temp, I would say from Thursday, so you can see if she drops by Saturday I would say is safe to do it that day. My girls usually whelp 61 days from ovulation anyways.

My vet refuses to do any c sections unless the bitch starts labor or has the temp drop, I sure wouldn't do it until I was sure they were ready to "hatch"
Aloha,
Jackie

I would definitely wait until I saw a change in temp or first stage labor has begun. I ran into this same problem (weekend), my vet was very acomadating and I was able to cancel the c-section on Sat. if she was not showing signs of labor.
Call your vet and see what the latest is you could bring her in on Sat. if she doesn't show signs by Friday PM.

don't feel the drop in temperature is a reliable enough indicator that the puppies are ready.
if an in house progesterone test is available to use, i would take advantage of that test as i feel it is a much more realiable source of determining when to go in an get those puppies JMO good luck

puppies?

Yes, our girl had 7 puppies on Sunday by c-section. We had an ultrasound and an in-house progesterone confirmed she was well below 2.5ng. Everyone is doing well. Thank you for all your suggestions!

congratulations